Author’s Note:  Our marketing team, while seeking content for our new website, learned that this newsletter began publishing monthly in 1988.  They dared me to repost something from long ago.   This was published in May, 1992, the year I turned 40.   

My sister, Mary, was in for a visit and we were taking a quiet walk.  I suppose we were reminiscing, which becomes more frequent as we grow older.

I said, “I love growing older.  It seems I appreciate life more than I did when I was a younger man.  I hope that means I’m going to grow old gracefully.”

She said, “You can’t grow old gracefully unless you were graceful when you were young.”

I’ve thought about that comment ever since she said it.  It seems it speaks as loudly to companies and business life as it does to our personal lives.

Earlier this month my brother, Bill, took me to the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.  It was certainly one of my most memorable trips, having watched and read about this tournament all my life.

While there, I decided that The Masters has grown old gracefully.  Surely it was graceful when it was young, but even in the deep South, some things must change.

At Augusta, tradition has melded with, and in some cases given way to, progress...

    The wooden shafts, even wooden drivers, that Bobby Jones once used, have given way to the metal           alloy clubs favored by the likes of Fred Couples.

    Byron Nelson could only use Augusta’s own club caddies.  Now Jack Nicklaus brings his son to aid his      mental attitude as well as his club selection.

    Thankfully, a tournament and a club which previously excluded African Americans now includes                good  people like Lee Elder and Calvin Peete without question.

    But the most interesting change I noticed was the updating of the event’s media coverage. What                used  to be a media “tent” has given way to a multi-million-dollar, high-tech building called the                      “Communications Center”; computers, satellites, the whole “state of the art”.

    And the most intriguing part of this communication center is that you can’t find it…unless you are                  looking very closely.

Why? - Because they don’t want you to see or think about high-tech communications, or the media or anything else while you are at the Augusta National Golf Club.  The sole focus of the club and the tournament must be golf and the only traditions which count are to be featured or noticed.

So, even though it houses equipment, which is state of the art, the building is an obscure warehouse style on the outside…it is set low to the ground…and it is painted – you guessed it – forest green to blend into the rich green of the trees, grass and foliage which surround it.

What does this have to do with our business and personal lives?

Like Augusta and the Masters, we must grow old gracefully.  We all must make lots of changes in our lives as we grow, but we must also retain the values and traditions which define us.

In fact, when we try to simply hang on to the old and the known, we are left behind.  Think about Holiday Inn and Howard Johnson’s. Yet, when we ignore our history and try to catch up with the new too quickly, we look the fool. (To get this idea, picture me in the latest fashions, cruising through the singles scene next year when my mid-life crisis is scheduled. Talk about not being graceful!)

 So, once again, the smart money “reaches for the middle”.  We retain what is good – in our business and personal lives – and update that which needs updating.

The Masters needed to get up to date on media coverage to accommodate the global appeal of its product in this new age of instant information.  But how foolish they would have appeared if the made the communications center look life something from “Star Trek”.

They are growing gracefully.

Are we?

Peace,

Tim McCarthy  

tim@thebusinessofgood.org 

www.thebusinessofgood.org 

Quote of the Month: Shane Parrish

“You have to do the work wrong many times before you discover    how to do it right.”

---Shane Parrish

Song of the Month:  "Downhearted; How Blue Can You Get" by BB King

Editor’s Note: This recording, live from Cook County jail, is my favorite version of this old blues song by the greatest blues guitarist of all time.  I learned it from John Zingg when we played out together in college and have enjoyed it ever since, especially these, my favorite lyrics. 

Favorite Lyrics:

“I gave you a brand new Ford, you say ‘I wanted a Cadillac’,

I bought you a ten dollar dinner, you said, ‘thanks for the snack’.

I let you live in my penthouse, you said it was just a shack,

I gave you seven children, and now you want to give them back!” 

Listen to the full song here

Book of The Month: "What If It All Goes Right" by Scarlet Keys

Editor’s note:  This is a fabulous, easy-to-read, morale-boosting book for anyone who needs a lift.  Keys’ simple approach starts with her breast cancer diagnosis but moves quickly into the broader concept of hope and how to focus on it using life’s best medicines, laughter and music among them.  Her appearance on NPR’s TED Hour is what caught my attention as this songwriter and music teacher spoke of how music impacts our lives.  PS Her TED talk, titled “Why do you love your favorite song”? is also informative and funny.

Favorite excerpts:

“’Radical hope’ is sometimes what we need the most; fierce and active, made of willpower and grit. Bursting with possibilities.” 

“Songs are the soundtracks of our lives”. 

Read it for yourself here

Truly Funny: 

My favorite mentors and bosses used their sense of humor while admonishing me.  I can still laugh and even hear their voices remembering their loud voices today.    

• “Not every thought deserves a voice”

• “Your lack of planning does not constitute my emergency”

• “Indeed, that was my mistake, but your job is to save me from myself”

• “Nouns and verbs, McCarthy, nouns and verbs” 

• “You do not have to run into every burning building”